Escape Plan [Eight]

Well, she’d done it now. After years of avoiding people like this, it seemed fate had finally seen fit to force her into a most dreaded encounter; with a lovesick girl. With pursed lips and her head resting in her hands, Cater just listened as the girl went on and on about some guy and how she liked him and how she was sure he liked her back but then he went and dated some other girl and… yeah… it was exactly as boring as one could imagine. Why this person was talking to her about this in the first place, Cater couldn’t tell you. She’d met her a few weeks ago during training, they were both gunners and the girl had asked if she could teach her about her magic bullet trick, she hadn’t seen the harm in helping a fellow student while at the same time doing something she enjoyed, so she had agreed to meet up with her a few times. Biggest mistake of her life. Rather than actually train like they’d agreed to, the girl just yapped and yapped about stuff that couldn’t be any less interesting even if they tried. It wasn’t like she was enabling this fellow student either, she’d made it quite clear a few times that she didn’t really care about other people’s love lives, but hell if that stopped her.

“So… ask him out then,” Cater sighed as she leaned forward and rested her forehead against the table for a second, hoping that if words didn’t do the trick in stopping this fellow student from talking to her about this, her exasperated body language would. “If you’re so sure he likes you, go up to him and ask him to go out with you. I’m not sure why you think talking to me about it will somehow change things for you… I don’t even know who you’re talking about.”
Of course her words had the exact opposite effect of what she was hoping to achieve, as the other girl let the words just run out of her mouth again like an endless stream. She needed to stop this before she drowned in them. “I don’t really care,” she tried to say in as friendly a tone as she could possibly muster before standing up, “I don’t care who he is. And if you can’t talk to him because you’re not even sure whether he likes you then… what the hell are you even trying to say? Does he or doesn’t he like you?” this was so confusing and so completely unnecessary. If she just went up and asked the guy ‘hey, do you like me?’ that would be the end of her personal crisis. He’d either say yes and they could start dating, or he’d say no and she wouldn’t have to worry about it any longer. Seriously… how hard could it be? Of course she knew it was scary admitting stuff like that, especially at this age… she wasn’t completely unsympathetic after all, but tormenting yourself with this insecurity for weeks, possibly months on end seemed far worse than just manning up and getting it over with.

The girl started clarifying things that were really clear as day already, to Cater anyway, so she just sat back down and let her gaze wander around the cafeteria. She’d listen for five more minutes, maybe offer her a last chance to listen to her advice, and then she was just going to leave. She hadn’t asked for this, and she’d already been more than generous with her advices these last few weeks. It had to end sometime, and that sometime might as well be today. Her eyes scanned around the room for one of her classmates, but she couldn’t find any of them. She really needed to let go on the training field for a few hours after sitting still and doing nothing almost all day, and who better to ask than the people who understood her best?

Tagged : Cater | Words : 600-ish | Notes : IT RETURNS. 

That time of day that Eight loved almost as much as any other had arrived, and he scurried down the hallways as quick as a flash to make good on that time - the time for food, or more specifically, lunch time.

Eight knew that other school kids always complained about the lunches at their schools being so bad and horrible and this and that and the other thing. Well, they didn't go to a school like the Peristylium Suzaku then, did they!? Eight figured that, since most of the students ate all their meals here, they kind of had to cook up some good food to keep everyone from fleeing for their lives. If they didn't have good food here, Eight probably would have decided to flee for his life, too. But a series of amazing smells hit his nose as he scooted down the hallway and ignored all the other students passing him and greeting him - aside from a very faint "hey" that he gave to them - and he would have those smells in his mouth. Or he would have the...tastes from those smells in his mouth. Breakfast had been four hours ago, and he didn't understand how someone went any longer than that without a full meal, especially not after classes with the "no you can't eat that in here" king of the world. As Eight rounded the corner, he wondered if he could file a complaint that the commander forced them into starvation, making them wait so long without eating.

A girl passing by with a plate of food in her hand advertised the lunch meal to Eight, and he stopped to gawk at the deliciousness for a few seconds. What he saw was a massive plate of steaming rice, a plate filled with pork dumplings, and...something. Every now and then, the lunch ladies decided to put a something on the plate. Eight could not determine what it was, but if it tasted good, he didn't care if it was bird droppings. ...Okay, he cared if they were bird droppings, but they were the only exception.

In his staring at the plate of food, he hadn't noticed that the girl had stopped to say something to him. Having caught none of it, Eight, with eyes still glazed over from the sight of the food, looked up at her a moment. "What?", he asked, not really wanting to know and instead deciding to look down at the food again. "I said – my eyes are up here!" Eight felt a twinge of confusion working at the back of his mind, wondering what her eyes had to do with the food. Nonetheless, apologizing seemed to be the easy way out. "Sorry...it just looks...delicious..." Almost before he could get the words out, he felt a sting against the side of his face that curiously was about the size of someone's hand. His instincts had him lean back defensively and rub at his cheek, and it was at that moment he noticed that the girl had nearly dropped her plate for desire to slap him. This time he did look into her eyes, confused, his features drooping. "Perv," was all she said, as she stormed away. Eight was left holding his face for a few seconds.

He took comfort in the fact that what just happened wouldn't be the strangest thing to happen to him today, since he spent at least some of his free time with Jack, and carried on in the general direction of the food at the other side of the cafeteria. Hopefully, no one else would slap him for staring at delicious food.

Tagged : Eight | Words : 654 | Notes :

By now, Cater had just decided to go people watching until she saw someone familiar, and then she would flee like a shot animal. It wasn’t like the girl actually cared whether she listened or not, she just wanted to rant. Well… go ahead and rant to a wall or something, because Cater was no longer listening. “Right… yeah… mhmm…” were the only words she uttered to ensure the girl thought she was still paying attention, but really, she had no idea what she’d been talking about for the last ten minutes. Probably the same old stuff. Cater’s attention (and surprisingly, her tablemate’s attention as well) was drawn away from the direction she’d been gazing at when she heard a sharp noise come from the other side of the room. It sounded like someone had just been slapped, and pretty hard too, if Cater knew her abusive sounds well.

Leaning back a little to see around the people at the other table’s, her eyes widened with hope when she realized who had just entered the cafeteria. Oh thank Etro… finally a familiar face. Without so much as a warning, she stood up and marched away from the table and towards where Eight was standing. On the way over, she passed by the girl who had just smacked him for… some reason. Cater was aware of Eight’s lady-gazing ways, but he wasn’t actually perverted enough to harass someone in the middle of a crowded cafeteria… was he? As she passed the girl, she reached over and grabbed her arm, “Hey,” she spoke in a sharp tone as she narrowed her eyes some, “Why did you slap my friend? What did he do?” the girl pulled her arm away and mentioned something about ‘her friend’ being a pervert and staring at her chest, but Cater’s attention was drawn elsewhere as soon as she spotted what was on the girl’s plate. Oh my… those looked so tasty… she hadn’t had pork dumplings in a while, to be honest, she didn’t even know they were being served today, otherwise she would’ve gotten a plate while listening to the other girl’s ranting. “Ugh, what the hell is up with your class?” the girl growled angrily as she took another step back and pulled her jacket closer around her as though she was trying to hide something. “Huh?” was all Cater could say before the girl stormed off once more, calling her entire class a class of scumbags. Well then… looks like the girl was just insane then. Oh well.

By the time she turned back to where Eight had been standing, he had moved on already. “Crap,” she hissed under her breath before standing on her tippy-toes to look around the room. Sadly for her, Eight was pretty short as well, and there were entirely too many tall people around today. After a few minutes of just trying to see past people, Cater gave up and just grabbed a chair to stand on. She was getting a few funny looks, but she honestly didn’t care much. She now towered over even the tallest of students, and it made looking around much easier, so she didn’t see the problem. From this new high ground, she easily spotted Eight walking straight towards the dumplings. “Eight!!” she yelled over the noise around her and started waving her arms so he would see her… because seeing her now was so difficult, right? “Wait there, I’m coming over!” now that she actually knew where he was, getting to him wasn’t too difficult. After pushing a few people aside and hopping over a few stray chairs along the way, she finally made it to her classmate’s side, and man was she happy to see him. So happy in fact that she immediately reached out and grabbed his arms and shook him a little, “Where have you been all day? I was waiting for hours. Hours.”

Tagged : Cater | Words : 600-ish | Notes : IT RETURNS.

Eight had all but forgotten about the strange reaction from the girl once he neared the glorious row of food at the other end of the cafeteria and could smell the wonders of the pork dumplings and all of the other things that someone had cooked just for him. Okay, they had cooked it for the rest of the school too, but Eight would take it as a personal gift. Grabbing a plate off of the stack fast enough that anyone aside from a monk might knock them all over, he kept his eyes focused on the food as he put himself at the back of the line and waited. Eight never got into a rush into much of anything, but when it came to food, the people ahead of him couldn't scoop up their portions fast enough. He tapped his fingers lightly against the sides of his plate, just waiting for them to finish up. "C'mon guys...it's not rocket science...", he said under his breath, and the student in front of him turned with a confused expression. Eight didn't even notice.

He did notice when he heard his name, though, snapping out of his second trance in as many minutes to see who it was calling to him. Though no rocket scientist himself, Eight imagined that the girl in the Class Zero uniform waving her arms up and down and staring at him - looking infinitely taller than she'd been when he'd seen her earlier in the morning - was the one that wanted his attention. "Whaaaaat?", he called back, hanging his mouth open because that could clearly help him hear her better. Ever since that day he'd found out about their "compatibility" thing before she had destroyed his soul with a body slam on her way to class to make him forget what he was going to say, Eight had made it his business to...well, actually get a chance to tell her about what he'd found out if he could ever think about it. He heard her say something about coming over. "Okaaaay!", he said back, seeing that height he had been so confused about disappear when she fell back down under the wave of students passing by. Maybe, if she was walking over here, he could finally bring up the compatability thing. But Eight turned back to the food that he had nearly gotten to his plate, and at the smell of it, he decided that right now, food was a priority over pretty much anything else.

She arrived just about in time for him to get his bowl of rice, and he licked his lips expectantly as he reached to fetch the bowl from beside the pile of grainy goodness. The arm that reached, though, was instantly immobilized by someone grabbing onto it, plus his other arm, and shaking him. Looking almost hurt, he turned to regard Cater standing there beside him, demanding something of him that his food-oriented brain took a few extra seconds to process. "But...but I saw you in class this morning," he responded, soberly, wondering what in the world she was talking about as he peered between her and the rice. Immediately, his face scrunched up. "Was I supposed to do something?" He was sure he sounded like Jack, who forgot to do everything all the time, but at the moment, he didn't really care. He went for the bowl again and snagged it this time, letting out a victorious "haha!" as he started stuffing it full of rice like a young man possessed.

Tagged : Eight | Words : 597 | Notes :

Why were there so many people around anyway? It had been busy for a while now, but it seemed like a whole stream of people had just walked in. From her position on the chair, she could see the clock hanging on the wall on the other end of the room. Oh… so that’s why. Lunch was starting right now, she hadn’t even been aware of that much time passing by, possibly because she’d tuned out after 20 minutes of talking – or listening, rather – in a desperate attempt to save her brain cells from dying violently under the girl’s constant yapping. So lunch time… that explained why Eight was here, if anyone made sure to never mess a single meal, it was him. Cater rolled her eyes a little at how simple her classmate could be at times, but a smirk soon followed. That simplicity was exactly why she liked him so much, and why they got along so well. Cater herself wasn’t an overly complicated individual either, or so she believed. Some people just liked to spend all their time thinking and worrying about stuff rather than living their lives and enjoying the small joys of life, and Cater never had been able to understand those people. A few of her classmates seemed to be like that, and she couldn’t understand them either. She loved them, but they just functioned on such a different level that she sometimes wondered if they were the same age at all.

By the time she made it over to Eight’s side, he had already turned back around to go scoop food onto his plate, and Cater couldn’t help but feel a little offended that he found the food more interesting than her. “Hey,” she scowled as she made a grab for his arms, completely ignoring the obvious fact that he was reaching for something. Cater was the opposite of shy, if she wanted someone’s attention, she was going to get it whether they wanted to give it to her or not. “Forget about food for a second. This is important.” She scolded him, but as she did, her own eyes started to wander to where he had been reaching. That looked so good… good enough in fact, that she slowly let go of his arms again without even realizing it. “I know, but…” the food was really distracting, to both of them it seemed, because as soon as she’d let him go, he was right back where he started; with his arms greedily reaching for the delicious. As he did so, she walked over to get a plate, and with an irritated look, she started scooping food up on her own plate as well.

“I needed you here, you remember that girl I told you about right? Miss yaps-a-lot?” she started with an exasperated sigh, “She caught me again right after class, and she’s been whining ever since. I came here specifically hoping you or Jack would be here to safe me, why are you here so late? I thought you practically lived here.” In her rant, she barely noticed how much food she was piling up on her plate, and by the time she did, they’d already moved too far down the line that she couldn’t put some of it back. “Uh…” she pursed her lips as she stared at the mountain of food. She liked eating, but she couldn’t eat this much. Of course, every problem had its solution, and Cater’s solution stood right next to her. “Yeah… I’m going to need you to help me finish this.”

Tagged : Cater | Words : 600-ish | Notes : IT RETURNS.

If Eight could have looked any more dejected than he did when Cater grabbed his arms and held him back from grabbing his bowl to fill up with rice, he managed it when she told him, at lunch time, to wait on food. Eight...Eight didn't wait on food, especially not at the exact hour he was supposed to eat food in the first place. "But...it's lunch time Cater...", he pleaded with her, staring into her face with his best puppy dog eyes only long enough to notice that her eyes had headed off in the direction of the food, too. The two of them stood staring desperately at the food together when Eight took the chance to look back in its direction, to the confusion of the guy and girl who had walked up behind Eight a few seconds before. Apparently, his pleading and explanation that he'd only seen her a few hours earlier was enough to get her to release him from this horrible prison of not-being-able-to-get-at-food, and he went at the food like Cater was about to take his chance to eat again before he scooped it all up. Before long, he had a big, beautiful pile of rice in his bowl, and he grinned widely at it.

After he was done looking at the glory of it and started for the pork dumplings beside the rice, he noticed that Cater was saying something again. Eight stuck his tongue out in concentration as he took the tongs and started nabbing his dumplings, halfway listening to what it was Cater was saying and giving her an "uh-huh" after her question. Even if he was focused on getting the best dumplings to put on his plate, and a whole lot of them, he did know what, or...well, who, Cater was talking about. Some lovesick type of girl who lived every day of her life in one of those crappy soap operas where the story was the same about every three months...not that Eight knew anything about soap operas or had ever seen one ever, nope. Okay, well, it was Jack's fault.

Eight finished with a giant pile of pork dumplings before moving on, now able to listen to Cater a little better since the most important parts of the meal were done. He just had to...pick through the weird-looking stuff. At the next pile of...fruity stuff on the line, he scrunched up his eyebrows, keeping them scrunched as he looked behind him at Cater. "Hey, I'm not late! It's lunch time," he told her, conveniently missing her comment about him living here. "And Jack got held back by the commander again...for the fifth time this week. I think he's almost beaten his old record, right?" Eight couldn't remember exactly what the old record was - six or seven - but Cater probably remembered, because she was good at keeping track of these kinds of things. He shuffled past another couple of boring foody things, before getting to the deserts and starting to pile up the edge of his plate around the dumplings with cookies.

In his concentration in placing as many cookies as possible on the plate without them falling off, leading him to stick out his tongue in focus again, Eight didn't really get the context of what Cater was saying about "finishing" something. It was with worried eyes that he looked up from his food finally and regarded Cater again. "Finish this...like, beat her up?", he asked, hoping that wasn't what Cater meant. Though he did beat up a lot of things, women weren't one of them, unless some kind of...ninja woman jumped out of the rafters to attack him or something like that. He'd make an exception if that happened.

He realized his plate was full, and with that, other thoughts were gone. He hefted up his plate and his bowl in his hands deftly, the grin returning as he made his way towards a booth on the side of the room. Yessss, lunch was a glorious time of day.

Tagged : Eight | Words : 577 | Notes :

“So? I’m more important than lunch,” she stated almost proudly, giving him a challenging look that she knew he would correctly interpret as something he really shouldn’t try to disagree with. It was hard to interpret the evil stare as anything else, after all. But the demon eyes faded almost as soon as she’d made them when she realized where she was standing and what that smell was that instantly seduced her nose into turning in its direction. Okay… well, her rant could wait for a bit. There were already more people walking their way, and she didn’t want to get stuck in line later when she could just quickly grab a plate and get it over with right away.

Though she obviously wasn’t the smartest person in the class, Cater knew when people weren’t really listening to her, after all, Eight used the exact same technique now that she had been using less than five minutes ago. She considered smacking Eight across the back of his head and demand he pay attention, but her hands were occupied with food right now. Besides, he knew who she was talking about, so long as he pretended to listen while she complained about this tragic morning, that would do for now, all she really wanted was to vent some frustration anyway, which worked whether the other person was actively paying attention or not. “By the way, I signed up for a bikini wrestling contest…” she spoke quickly in the middle of her rant to see whether he was listening or not. A statement like that would surely get more than a ‘mhmm’ from him. Girls and bikinis were almost as important to her friend as food was, after all.

“Yeah, but lunch started five minutes ago,” she replied to his obvious comment of it currently being lunch time, “I expected you here at least ten minutes ago so you’d be first in line. You’re slacking Eight!” she laughed before playfully smacking his shoulder with her currently free hand. “Almost. The record’s seven. And what did he do this time?” It was really no surprise that Eight and Jack were close friends, seeing as they could both be idiots. Not that Cater had much room to talk. Whenever people outside of the class talked about them, Cater was always piled in with the idiots, it happened often enough that she suspected there might be some truth to their words. “I heard they made stricter rules about that too, if you get held back six times in a row now, you get the lovely punishment of cleaning duty… of the entire school.” She wasn’t sure if there was any truth to the rumor, but it wouldn’t surprise her if it was really true. More and more people were misbehaving these days, and it would make perfect sense if the school’s administrators had decided to use these methods to scare people into behaving better. Terrifying your students worked better than talking gently about their attitude problems, or so she imagined. Fear would certainly make her listen better… not that Cater was really afraid of anything, but you know.

“What?!” she exclaimed when he suggested beating her stalker up, her eyes widened some as she stared him straight into the eye. “What the hell? I thought you were all anti-violence!” what the heck was happening here? She’d forgotten about her original question, which made the situation even more confusing than it already was.

Tagged : Cater | Words : 800-ish | Notes : IT RETURNS.

Welp, Eight definitely knew not to say anything to disagree with Cater announcing that she was more important than lunch, even if, with the food so close, he had to wonder if she was really telling the truth. There was a chance that she was, in fact, not more important than lunch. If Eight had missed breakfast, lunch might have been life-saving for him. But still, he didn't really feel like having Cater scraping his eyes out with the tongs in the pork dumplings, so instead of argue, he solemnly nodded in agreement with her. She didn't look too mad with him yet for being late, and Eight really didn't want to get her to that point. So what...ever it was she was trying to tell him, he guessed he'd better listen...while sneakily and quickly grabbing up his food at the same time. Yeah, she wouldn't even notice how fast he stole this food away.

And he thought she wouldn't notice that he was only kind of sort of listening to what she had to say as he stole that food. Yeah, he'd get away with just hearing that the weird talky girl that always annoyed her had come back to annoy her some more, and then he'd...well, he'd probably nod a lot more while he ate and she told him about it. It wasn't that Eight didn't like hearing Cater talk - heck, he still had that whole compatability thing in the back of his mind somewhere, behind the word food in huge, bold letters - but he wasn't really sure what he could do to help her with her yappy new best friend since he'd already shown up "late" anyway. So Eight'd...eat. And Cater would talk. And he wouldn't be able to help her, probably, but at least he would be...there, with his ears open, while he ate this delicious food that he nearly had perfectly stacked-

Eight heard the words "bikini" and "I" from Cater, and his eyes immediately widened as he turned to her - not to her specifically, but down to her waist and then her chest for a moment each. "You...when!?", he wasted no time in asking, Cater now zooming ahead of food in terms of importance. For a short time as he looked at her, he truly believed some brilliant, brilliant human being was putting on a bikini wrestling contest for the girls in the school and that Cater would want to be rolling around with other girls while not wearing any clothes. And then, it hit him that none of it, from the side of the school and from Cater's side, made any sense. Eight's eagerness faded slowly, and he sucked in a long breath. "...There's not a bikini wrestling contest," he acknowledged, hanging his head a little and rubbing his hand through his hair, before he realized that Cater had brought it up out of the blue for some reason. He had to figure out that reason. He peered back at her again. "...Do you wanna be in one?", he asked, some of the eagerness returning.

And she didn't have to lecture him about missing out on being first in the lunch line, even if she was joking! He was already sad enough about how long he had to wait. "I would have made it, but Jack held me back! You know how he gets when he has to face the commander." And how Jack got was not very good, at all. "He didn't do any homework for a straight week...again," Eight told her, looking like he couldn't even believe it even though he had seen the same stuff from Jack for years now. "I told him to do at least one...heck, I was going to send him to Trey so he could hear the lectures all over again." Everyone knew that, if they missed something in class, they could head right over to wherever Trey was hanging around and get the expanded version of the whole lesson. Jack fell asleep listening to Trey as much as he did to the commander, though. Eight couldn't blame him.

He also knew that, aside from Jack having to stay back every day and get tortured by the commander, the school couldn't really, uh..use that whole punishment thing on him. "They can't use that punishment with Jack, though... He'd take running around cleaning stuff over class all day." Heck, Eight probably would be the same way if he never ever actually did any of his work. But here Eight was, doing work, when he could be like Jack and they could just make him run around the empty halls and clean instead of do brain work. Jack could be smart sometimes...too smart...

Eight had turned away from the lunch line with his beautiful plate and bowl, just in time for Cater to yell out something behind him that made him stop and turn around to look at her, confused. "I am!", he told her, when she said something about him being anti-violence. The only thing he could guess was that he'd missed something while being so excited to get done gathering his food so he could go eat it. "Why...what do you want me to do, then?", he asked her, standing there in limbo between the food line and the table with his hands full.

Tagged : Eight | Words : 705 | Notes :

An evil little smirk made its way onto her face when her comments about bikini wrestling had actually done the trick in drawing Eight’s attention. Some part of her fully expected him to reply with another ‘mhm’ or a ‘that’s great’ or some other small line that indicated that he wasn’t paying attention to her words at all. She should’ve know this one would do the trick though. Everyone who said Eight had a one track mind was completely wrong. Yes, he thought about food almost constantly, but he also spent a good deal of time spying on girls and probably thinking about something as silly as a bikini wrestling contest. Yes, mentioning something like this would definitely draw his attention to her… or… to her chest, apparently. Well, she couldn’t really get mad at him for it. It was kind of her fault for mentioning bikinis, where else did she expect him to look? Most people, she would’ve probably gotten at least a little upset with them for staring at her chest, but she knew Eight just couldn’t help himself at times like this. Eight wouldn’t be Eight if he didn’t stare at breasts at the mention of scarcely clad women wrestling each other. “Nope,” she confirmed with a sadistic giggle. The disappointed look he gave her almost made her feel guilty for tricking him, but in the end, it was just as much his fault for not paying attention to her earlier. He deserved to suffer a little for that. They were even now. Or so she thought… and then he had to ask her if she wanted to be in a contest like that, and Cater just couldn’t help herself. “Maybe I do...” She replied in a flat, matter-of-factly tone before walking past him and piling more food on her plate. Oh yes she was mean, but who could honestly resist an opportunity like this? She’d make it up to him later somehow.

When Eight started talking about Jack and his incredible knack for getting into trouble, Cater just rolled her eyes and laughed every so often when Eight poked fun at their blond-haired friend. That guy just seemed like he wanted to be punished sometimes, considering the way he acted. “I don’t know… the entire school? It’s a big building,” She replied to his mentioning that Jack would take cleaning the school over attending class, “Though considering how incredibly dull Kurasame is, I’d probably take that punishment over being stuck with him every day as well.” It was no secret that Cater disliked their new teacher. Though to be fair, most of the class probably felt the same way. Not only had he replaced Mother, he’d also kicked Nine around for acting out against him. As much as Nine sometimes deserved a good kick in the face for his actions, Kurasame had no right to do what he did. You touched one of Class Zero, and you might as well have attacked the entire class. They’d already been upset about Mother abandoning them, but with that action, he’d made it personal. “Are you going to his class tomorrow by the way? I’m not,” not going to class was a petty way of showing your disapproval, but Cater didn’t care. She’d never claimed to be a mature person anyway.

There was a brief silence from Cater’s side when Eight mentioned beating up a girl and then claiming he was anti-violence. Was she missing something here? Because that made no sense… how could you be against violence and still suggest beating someone up? “So… why… did you ask it then?” her tone matched the confused look on her face. When Eight asked his next question though, Cater just shrugged her shoulders and walked past him to the table. “I… don’t even know anymore,” she just replied before plopping down on a chair and setting her plate down, as soon as she did though, she remembered. “Oh right, you need to help me finish this.” She motioned to the huge pile of food on her plate, “You know how the cafeteria staff hates it when you throw stuff away… last time someone did that they gave them the silent treatment for almost a week.”

Tagged : Cater | Words : 700-ish | Notes : IT RETURNS.

Now why would Cater joke about something as serious as being a part of a bikini wrestling contest, Eight had to ask himself. He simply looked at her with all kinds of disappointment when she giggled at him about it. She had some sort of sinister plan behind telling him such a story...he just knew it. And he stared at her to try and figure out what that sinister plan was...at least until she said that she might actually do the bikini wrestling thing if it had really been a thing. Eight's eyes widened a little at her and almost shot right back to her chest. She didn't give him much of a sure answer that she'd take part in that kind of thing...but even the hint of it was...well, it sounded really, really good. He swallowed heavily even halfway thinking about the...image...of such an amazing and uh...entertaining event. Finally, though, he got himself back to reality and cleared his throat, bringing his eyes back up to Cater's face. Well, until someone did get one of those contests together...he just had to wait. "Maybe...", he repeated, knowing he had to remember that for later...much later.

"Who wouldn't? Aside from like...Trey," Eight replied, to Cater's comment that she'd take cleaning the school over a long afternoon and evening with the commander. Heck, even Trey might not want to deal with that cold-hearted jerk for so long. Life had been so simple back before Kurasame had come on the scene...and now people expected them to do that thing called work that Eight, Jack, Cater, and a bunch of the rest had dodged for years while still being perfectly good candidates. Just because they couldn't write fancy things on paper like numbers didn't mean they were any less capable of being members of Class Zero - the best class in the school for a lot of different reasons. Yep, Eight would much rather they made him clean up the school than do any extra work with the commander, since work for other people definitely made better people than getting beaten up by an abusive teacher. Sure, Nine was a punk and sometimes deserved a nice punch in the chin, but not from a teacher. Only Eight could punch him!

Thinking between Jack and the food and the remnants of the thoughts about bikini wrestling made Eight almost miss Cater's question about skipping class right before he gathered up his glorious pile of rice and pork dumplings to go sit down. "Tomorrow's pizza day!", he reminded her, getting dreamy eyes and staring off into the distance just thinking about it. He spoke just as dreamily. "Class isn't a thing on pizza day..." Eight got the first pizza out of the oven on pizza day, whether or not he had class that morning. And then he didn't really go to class in the afternoons, either, if there was still pizza to be eaten. Anytime Eight could get free pizza, he was going to be there, no questions asked. ...And he might have wanted to skip class just because Cater was skipping, too. She could bask in the pizza with him.

But, there was no pizza now, only the food they had today. Eight would have gotten right to eating if Cater hadn't confused him half to death about...whatever it was...she wanted to do with the girl who kept yakking at her about girl things. He decided not to add anything else to the confusion, since they already had enough, and didn't really answer her question about why he'd asked about beating the girl up. Sure, he could say that he thought Cater was asking him to beat someone up in the first place, but why ask questions like that when...when he had this glorious food. As he turned away from her with his mouth watering again, he shuffled towards the table a little faster and plopped down into one of the seats. "Yes, yes," he said under his breath to himself, as he settled into his seat and went to immediately shoveling in the first of the rice before Cater could even get settled in with him. Now that he had the food before him, though, he could at least hear what she was saying and started nodding eagerly as he reached across and nabbed one of her pork dumplings before she could even start eating. "Way 'head o' you," he told her, through his mouthful of food. He was perfectly happy now.

Tagged : Eight | Words : 1013 | Notes : Caught up I think?

Ah, this was fun. A little evil, but fun all the same. Cater might not have been your stereotypical mean girl, but she was no pure, innocent little angel either. At times, she just enjoyed messing with people and watching them squirm, though Eight’s reaction to her bikini wrestling comment didn’t seem to make him squirm so much as it made him just shamelessly stare down at her chest as though he could undress her with his eyes. Too bad for him, but magical laser eyes wasn’t part of his skill set. Not yet anyway. If ever such a thing was invented, she was sure her friend would be first in line to try it out. “Maaaybe.” She said one last time when Eight slowly repeated the word to her. She was going to regret this torture some day, but some day didn’t mean today. Today, she could just laugh to herself and not worry about the long term consequences of what she just said.

“Yeah… But I doubt even Trey is desperate enough to talk that he’s willing to sit with Kurasame for a full day. He could always rant at his reflection, after all,” she snorted a little at the thought of Trey ranting into his own mirror. Why could she actually see that happening? It was more than a little disturbing. But that was Trey for you; seemingly innocent, but completely nuts deep down. Cater still loved him though, and he had taught her how to tune out after a while if people went on long rants, so he’d even taught her something useful. She would’ve never lasted in that talk from this morning if not for Trey’s lessons in blocking people out after a while. “That’s tomorrow?” she almost gasped when Eight mentioned pizza day. Pizza… Cater loved pizza. If she didn’t already have a good reason not to attend class tomorrow, this would surely be the thing that would keep her out of the classroom and into the cafeteria tomorrow. “Nice… can you call me tomorrow morning? Just in case I forget to set my alarm?” Eight was sure to be up before the crack of dawn tomorrow, just to ensure he was first in line for pizza, so he was probably a more reliable alarm clock than the actual thing on her nightstand. “Is anyone else coming? I know Jack, Sice and Nine are probably going to skip tomorrow, but anyone else?” she almost kind of hoped everyone would skip class tomorrow. It would mean less pizza for her, but it would be nice to sit and eat together as an entire group again.

It had been too long since all twelve of them had been together. Cinque should be easy enough to convince, and with some luck they could even convince King and Seven to skip, if only for a day. They took school seriously, but they were also big softies. If they could somehow get both Cinque and Deuce on their side, those two would surely give in to the temptation of pizza day. Trey would come just because the majority of his class would be away from his ranting ways, and he obviously couldn’t have that. The only people they might struggle with were Ace and Queen. Cater hadn’t seen much of either of them lately, and it made her kind of sad. It was true that she mostly hung out with Deuce and Cinque because of their similar ages, and Eight and Jack because of their similar personalities, but that didn’t mean Cater was actively shunning the others. They just… didn’t click as easily with her as those other four did, especially not Queen. The two of them seemed like polar opposites at times; Cater followed her instincts and tried not to think much about anything. She let her heart guide her, and though it didn’t always lead her to success, she never regretting following it anyway. Meanwhile, Queen sometimes seemed like a walking vial of pure logic. She listened to her brain, and she spent a lot of time thinking rather than doing. Cater respected her, but had a hard time understanding her sometimes. The best way to start understanding her was probably to spend more time with her though, maybe one of these days, she’d give her a call and ask to go do something together, just the two of them. After all, even despite their differences, Cater still thought of Queen as a sister of sorts. It’d be nice to sit down and catch up sometime.

“H-Hey!” Cater stammered when Eight plucked the tastiest piece of food she’d collected right off her plate. He was fast… like a ninja or something. Cater was usually faster than pretty much everyone, and anyone else would’ve probably been prying a fork from their hand because Cater stabbed them with it in a reflex, but Eight had won this round. “That’s not fair, my reflexes are off because of… because of… you know…!” wow, that was awkward. She’d referred to the girl by nicknames so often that she forgot her actual name. …oh well. Cater figured she had to hurry and eat whatever she could eat before Eight finished both his plate and hers in the time it took her to get all up in arms about it, so without further delay, she grabbed a fork and started shoving food into her mouth. “Fo goof,” she tried to say with her mouth full of delicious food. Honestly, she hadn’t even realized how hungry she was before. Maybe she wouldn’t even need that much help finishing her plate. As she ate, she suddenly realized that they hadn’t gotten any drinks to go with their meal. Swallowing her food, Cater stood up and looked down at Eight, he was still stuffing his face like he hadn’t eaten in years. “I’m getting a drink, want some?” she asked casually. Her eyes moved over to where she’d left her stalker friend before, and much to her relief, she was no longer there. She must’ve gotten tired of waiting.

Tagged : Cater | Words : 803 | Notes : I love this thread. 

"Where do you think Trey gets all his talks?", Eight had to ask his friend, when she said that even Trey couldn't listen to the commander as long as Jack had to. "Trey goes and listens to that guy, and then he goes to the library to read things, and then he yaks in the mirror for like, five hours before he gets some sleep." Okay, the end part was just Eight's assumption, but his assumption was probably right. He'd have to ask Ace sometime if Trey really did stay up talking to himself in the mirror...but whether he did or not wasn't the point right now. The point was...well, food, but also that Trey was crazy enough to listen to the likes of Kurasame all day long. "Trey puts up witht he commander longer anyway... Jack doesn't listen in class, so he has to stay back. Trey listens in class, like Queen, except Queen gets something out of it..." He didn't know what had gotten him to rant so much, outside of excitement for the plate he nearly had back to the table, where he could devour every ounce of it. He tended to talk a little more when he got excited...and food was plenty to get excited about.

Pizza day was worth getting even more excited about than a normal day at lunch, too, because the school kind of thought it was really fancy and tried to give all the students this fancy food they cooked up. Sometimes, you just had to get a bunch of pizzas and throw them out at some teenagers and...let Eight eat everyone's share of the pizza if he could get his hands on them fast enough. He stood looking towards the back of the cafeteria almost dreamily as he thought about biting into the doughy goodness before everyone else, since he'd made it a tradition of skipping class to make it to pizza day early. Suddenly, when Cater asked him again if pizza day was tomorrow, he cut her eyes to her suspiciously. Yes, she would try to get here first to steal the pizza for herself. He would not let it happen that way. No he would not. Good thing she wanted him to call her to wake her up for the pizza...he could get here, get his share, and then leave the rest for her...and...the...rest she mentioned. If Nine got here first, the cafeteria would be completely empty of pizza... Eight bit his lip and turned away from Cater for a few seconds, formulating a plan in his mind to ensure that the pizza was his first. He could just...not mention it to any of the others and call Cater a few mintues late, like he'd said. And if anyone got to the cafeteria before him, somehow...well...he was a monk. He had reflexes and speed. He could win. "Yes...yes I'll call you...", Eight said, all too sinisterly, before he turned back and awkwardly smiled to cover himself. "I mean...yeah, I'll call you! The others can skip if they want...I dunno, I can't keep up with Jack and Sice, and Nine just grunts like a caveman." Nothing he'd said right there had been untrue...so yeah, his evil plan was going to work.

But right, now was the time to eat this food...and Cater's food...and whatever food today offered. And Cater should have known better than to tell him that he could eat part of her food...because he was going to take that part now, rather than later, and he shoveled down her pork dumpling like it had never even existed with her permission. He didn't exactly hear what she said about reflexes over the sound of how great the food tasted, and in the span of about one minute, a good third of the pork dumplings on his own plate had disappeared. Right, it was time to try the rice, and his eyes got glowy with excitement again as he picked up the bowl and lifted it to his mouth to start shoveling some of it in, too.

Usually one to not drink much with meals - since he forgot to get a drink, as he had for lunch today too - Eight kept his bowl to his face and just kind of nodded indifferently when Cater asked if he wanted her to get him something to drink. He guessed, somewhere behind the part of his brain that was just constantly telling him that the rice tasted delicious, that he would need something to wash all this food down when he finished eating, even if it wasn't a necessity. If Cater could get the drinks without him having to stop eating, all the better!

“Let's travel across the rainbow together,
To a place nobody else knows."

Cater shrugged at Eight’s question. Who knew where Trey got the energy to yap and yap like a needy puppy all day long? Did they even want to know? She supposed they could try and ask him, but that would surely lead to the mother of all rants, and Cater didn’t do rants. She pretended to listen, only to tune out after a minute or two. That’s why she liked people like Eight and Jack, they could rant sometimes as well, but at least it was about entertaining stuff. Deuce and Cinque too. Hell, pretty much everyone besides maybe two of them were entertaining to converse with. Queen and Trey could be amusing if they tried, sadly, they rarely seemed to try. Oh well, family was family and all that, it would probably be weird if Queen and Trey changed too much, they were used to the way they were now after all. “I have nooo idea,” she replied with a shake of her head, “Honestly, I’m fairly sure he just repeats the same sentence for about ten minutes after he starts talking because he knows no one’s listening anyway…” that was what it seemed like to her, anyway. He probably was too, she wouldn’t put it past him to just keep on talking about the same damn thing just to sound interesting. “Hey, I listen in class,” she started with a semi serious expression as they walked over to the table, “I listen for cues signaling the end of it,” she snorted a little to herself and plopped down on the chair in an unladylike fashion. Cater honestly didn’t care if she was the only one who was amused by her comments, in the end, her own amusement was more important anyway, right? Other people could go ahead and entertain themselves the way she did.

And then the subject changed to food, as it usually did when Eight was part of the conversation. Cater didn’t mind it much, she might not have the same levels of dedication to food as he did, but she still liked it as well. At first she didn’t notice the change in Eight’s behavior, but after she finished chewing on her dumpling and glanced over at her friend, she narrowed her eyes a bit suspiciously before swallowing her food. Was that really such a difficult question? ‘Can you call me’, all you needed to say was yes or no… but then, that wasn’t what Eight was thinking about, was it? The redhead placed her elbow on the table and rested her cheek against her hand, and just continued to stare at him a little while longer as he sat with his back towards her, thinking about whatever it was he was thinking about. A single eyebrow quirked up when he finally replied to her initial question. Good grief, the way he sounded, she almost wanted to retract that request because he sounded downright creepy now. The faked smile didn’t help either, even if he thought it did. “Mhmm…” she replied quietly as she continued to stare at him, “Should I fear for my life?” she asked bluntly before attempting to mimic his voice, “Yes… yes… I’ll call you…?” honestly, she didn’t need him to explain himself to her, she just wanted to let him know how obvious he could be sometimes. For his own good, obviously. “So you know, I’ll be bringing my gun, so you’d better not try anything funny.”

Figuring that she’d made her point, Cater didn’t say any more about her friend’s odd behavior just now and went back to the happy conversations they’d had before. And eating, of course. They couldn’t talk all throughout lunch, their food would go cold that way, and who honestly liked cold food? …Eight, most likely. He probably liked moldy food because food was food. He had to be the least complex person she knew. While they ate, Cater realized they’d forgotten something… the food tasted great as it was, but drinks always helped make a meal even better, for her anyway. Eight didn’t seem to notice the lack of beverages at all, so she figured he wouldn’t go all gentlemanly on her and offer to fetch the drinks himself, so it was on her to ensure they wouldn’t dehydrate. “Okay, be right back,” she replied to his nod and then took off towards where the drinks were stored. She didn’t even know what he wanted, but that didn’t matter much. He should’ve specified if he wanted anything special, so if she ended up getting him the wrong thing, it was really all his own fault.

Unlike with the food, getting to the drinks was surprisingly easy. Most people must’ve figured they’d fetch their food first and worry about drinks later. Awesome, because she was getting tired of standing in line for something as simple as lunch. Her eyes scanned over the various choices of beverages for a few second, mostly to determine what she wanted to drink, and she’d give her second choice to Eight. If he didn’t like it, she’d have to drink it for him so it had to be something she liked. Just as she was about to reach for the cans, a cold chill ran down her spine, and Cater slowly turned around to see what might have caused it. Hm, there was no one behind her, maybe the air-conditioning needed fixing again. Despite trying not to think anything of it, Cater grabbed the drinks more quickly than she otherwise would’ve and spun on her heel to head back to Eight. She nearly dropped the cans when she noticed what her body had been trying to warn her for just now. Oh Etro, no… what was Kayla doing here? Had Stalkerina invited her? Considering they were sitting together, that seemed to be the most likely scenario. Of course, it shouldn’t have surprised her that these two were friends, and it didn’t, really, what did surprise her was how close they were sitting to the table she and Eight occupied. Had they… been there all along? The way they were eying her friend didn’t sit right with her. They were up to no good. Why did these people always have to turn up at the worst possible times? They hadn’t even finished their lunch yet for heaven’s sake!

Trying her hardest to pretend that she hadn’t noticed them yet, Cater walked back to the table and set Eight’s drink down next to him without uttering a single word before rigidly sitting back down in her own seat. Her eyes moved over Eight’s plate and then her own. While he was well on his way to finishing his meal, her own meal was only halfway finished. The thought of getting attacked by not just her stalker but Kayla as well had ruined her appetite though, and while she could probably finish the meal anyway, it would take entirely too long. She wanted to grab Eight and run before they got bold enough to invite themselves to sit at their table and bother them, so without a moment’s hesitation, Cater shoved her plate over to Eight, figuring he wouldn’t even notice it and would just start eating the second he realized there was more food left to be feasted on. Eight would finish this meal quicker than she could, and the faster they got out of here, the better. She was not listening to another one of that girl’s rants, she really wasn’t. And Kayla? Good grief she always wanted to punch Kayla, so a combination of those two would likely lead to her getting violent. No one wanted that, so it was better to avoid it altogether.

WORDS: 1285 | TAGGED: Eight | OUTFIT: CZ Uniform | LOCATION: Cafeteria | NOTES : Figured they should get to the escaping part at some point xD